April 02, 2009

One of the Reasons Why I Like Blogs

Blogs are something I can (usually) take or leave alone. Some are good and some are bad. I am aware of the reasons WHY blogs are (supposedly) important to businesses, but, at times, I question some of those reasons. It is difficult, although not impossible, to ascertain accurate numbers regarding how much new business, increased prestige, and other worthwhile benefits are gained as a result of routine blogging. One thing that is easy to measure, however, is how useful a particular blog is to ME. How a blog benefits ME is really the best reason that I can come up with to justify reading blogs.

Today's perfect example is the most recent post ( http://doughennig.blogspot.com ) by one of the legendary (hope that description doesn't go to his head) super-players in the world of Visual FoxPro, Doug Hennig. Hidden within the code that Doug generously provides is a Visual FoxPro function that I did not know even existed. The ObjToClient() function has limited use, but like most functions, when you need it, you are glad it is around. I have never used it, but after reading about it, I KNOW that I could have used it in the past when I "jumped through hoops" to achieve the desired effect. AND... I KNOW that I will use it in the future when the need arises.

I would not have gained this knowledge had I not been in the habit of reading Doug's blog. Now it so happens that, today, Doug's blog was the one that contained the nugget that made me a smarter software developer, but it just as easily could have been one of the many other blogs that I read on a regular basis. So, if you are not reading blogs regularly (which begs the question, what are you doing here right now?), get in the habit of spending a few minutes each day. I guarantee that, in the long run, it will pay YOU dividends.

9 Comments

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Blogging is what web 2.0 is about - contributing rather than standing by, and I fully agree that there's loads of useful information out there in the blogging world, which would otherwise have been inaccessible. However, sometimes one needs to ruffle through tons of blogging maniac type of posts to strike the gold. At least the gold is still there...

I agree, I wasn't in the habit of reading blogs before. Didn't think I would find anything helpful. Once I started getting more into it, I've ran across new ideas and techniques. Nice post, thanks for sharing!

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